Cleaning Brass; issues I created!

M

Malpratice

Inactive
I have a small brass issue that I just made worse this am! Murphy and I are best friends! I primed 250ish 223 brass a couple of years ago, they have been sitting open(yes bad idea) on the shelf. I just got some projectiles and new powder in and was about to 'play' again. The dust is not a problem, the oil from cooking in the next room is.
With new primers in them I can't tumble them wet, can I? That would be great. I dry tumbled 50 with my SS rods this am. Now everything is sticky! I thought my tumbler was clean but who knows.
Just punch the live primers and start over? It's only 50ish?
Thanks

Yesterday's plans are not necessarily today's procedures!
 
If I have this right you have cooking oil on your cases that you then put 50 into dry pins and you have oil on those as well?

If you have a dry tumbler you could clean that residue off (maybe) but your media would be contaminated to some degree.

Best would be to get some solvent (you can even try rubbing alcohol) and clean off all the cases.

If on the pins like it sounds you will have to do a cleanup on those but I would think detergent solution would do that.

You could probably do a detergent and tumble and as long as short primers ok, but then dry the cases out in a +80 degree area , but the alcohol and or solvent (use nitrile gloves) would be for sure easy and no question.
 
Ok, I will give the alcohol a fo tonight. I wasn't sure if the primers were sealed. If I was going to 'hurt' them I would just punch them out. But the alcohol bath is the first ) hopefully) last step.
Thanks so much for your help!

Mal
 
"But the alcohol bath is the first ) hopefully) last step.
Thanks so much for your help!"

WHOA
Not a "bath" but a wipe down.
 
Would spraying the cases in question with brake cleaner work, dries quick and leaves no residue either????
 
Any "solvent" hosed on the cases has the potential of damaging the primers. Dry tumbling of primed cases has the potential of plugging the flash hole with media that is impossible to remove.
The ONLY 100% positive way to remedy this problem is to simply punch out the primers and tumble the cases.
 
Agreed. The smart thing would be to dampen a rag with a little mineral spirits and wipe off the outsides of the cases. Don't get anything liquid on the primers from the inside and don't wet them from the outside; the cloth is to be damp, not sopping wet. You don't want any solvent wicking into the primer either from the inside or by a capillary action along the sides of the primer from the outside. Primer sensitivity to solvents is brand and formulation dependent, but where a solvent will kill a primer, water is almost always the one that does it. Most alcohol has some water in it, so it's a poor choice. With Federal primers, for example, which have a lacquer seal, the seal cracks when you seat them, so water can get at them quickly and easily and will usually kill them almost immediately. But if you have CCI primers in there, they may survive water for days to weeks, in which case a brief exposure won't hurt.

The main point I wanted to make is that a cooking oil film on the inside of the cases probably won't cause a problem. Some folks use case lube for neck lube without experiencing problems, so traces of oil won't stop powder from burning. Besides, those films are usually sticky but not very fluid. The extra carbon they produce on firing won't hurt anything particularly. So it's just getting the oil off the outside that matters. This is so it doesn't pick up dust and grit that adds wear to the gun and doesn't come off in your magazines, causing them to get sticky and to pick up dust and grit.
 
As noted above (a few times) clean the oil off with solvent, alcohol, etc. manually. No big deal. If you sit down and try to do 250, yes that will get tiresome real quick, so remember "There's only one way to eat an elephant, that's one bite at a time", so just do a few, as many as comfortable doing at a time...

FWIW; I reloaded for 12 years before I got a tumbler, I just wiped each case with a solvent dampened rag as I inspected it...
 
I second what Unclenick wrote. I recently had a similar problem with some .45 Auto brass I had pre-primed ??? years ago. I had them stored in 50-round plastic ammo trays left over from commercial ammo. For some reason, the cases in one tray picked up something on the surface. It was visibly blotchy, and could be felt when rolling the cases in the hand.

My solution was to take a small-ish wad of steel wool and rub each case with it. If that hadn't work, I would have next tried with Brass Brite or mineral spirits but, fortunately, the dry wipe with steel wool did the job.
 
Wow...
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the safety protolcols!!
1) Don't tumble primed or loaded cases. Especially with steel pins!!
2) Don't "punch out" primers. If one goes off it looks like a shotgun blast.

It's primers and 223 casings. Your looking at what, 10 cents each??

I'd wipe the outside of the casing, fire the primer and then either clean in media or sonic. Or just throw the cases in the recycling bin as it's not worth the hassle.
 
My solution was to take a small-ish wad of steel wool and rub each case with it.
Click to expand...

Aguila, many years ago I made case spinners for small lots of cases, when spinning I start with 3M green pads and then finish with steel wool. And yes, in my arsenal of tools I have a case spinner mandrel maker.

F. Guffey
 
Wow...
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the safety protolcols!!
1) Don't tumble primed or loaded cases. Especially with steel pins!!
2) Don't "punch out" primers. If one goes off it looks like a shotgun blast. ??

I took a few out back and chambered and shot them. The Bolt seating is more powerful than a small rifle primer.

I do thank everyone for their time and ideas. In the end I had to give them a bath with Dawn. What ever was in my tumbler (from the last time I used it.) Was inside as well. So I'll be punching "live" primers (after testing it's not worth my time to discharge them all), and starting them from 'range pick up' status.

Again Thanks, for letting me join. There is a welth of information here!
 
So, after my warning, and you quoting me, your deciding to ignore said safety warnings.

At the least make sure you wear safety glasses.
 
Std7,. Your warnings were NOT ignored. It was tested and found to be lacking. Kinda like the fish this... Big! It is appreciated, the next one my be an under statement!
As for safety, I have all my digets, eyes and ears. Safety glasses are perscription and cheaters are needed on occasion
 
Just go very slowly on the decapping. I and a lot of other folks have done that numerous times with no problem, but that's just anecdotal evidence so you can't be sure you won't get one that fires. (I remember sitting one evening in a room where a friend was using the old Lee Loader for shotgun shells and had three or four primers go off during seating them. Loud. Sparked fingers. No permanent damage, though.) I would recommend using something like the Lee Universal Depriming and Decapping Die because it will be wider than your cases and have no expander, giving primer gas an easy escape path. Wear glasses and hearing protection and a glove on the hand running the press so it doesn't get sparked by the downward redirected gasses.
 
Just go very slowly on the decapping. I and a lot of other folks have done that numerous times with no problem, but that's just anecdotal evidence so you can't be sure you won't get one that fires.
Click to expand...
I had picked up some corrosive 30 M2 AP ammo a few years back. Didn't want to shoot it in my gas guns. So I deprimmed them and reprimed the cases with new primers, reused the powder and bullet. I did a lot of them one winter. I did have one go off, I about loaded my drawers but other than that nothing happened. I think it was because I was to fast with the stroke on that one. So I made sure to go slow and it was just the one that went off. I was using a Lee Universal decapper, I love that thing. For as cheap as 50 primers are I would cut my loses, push them out and tumber to clean the cases.
 
I would wipe them down , better then poping the primers . Don't think it would make such a good range day until l got finished shooting them . I like my brass to start out like new but it happens .
 
Who determined removing primers falls under "safety protocol"? Every reloader I personally know and hundreds of forum members routinely remove live primers from cases and I've heard of no primers firing. There are many safety "measures" quoted on reloading forums that are at best theories, and a lot are just Old Wives Tales that cannot be substantiated. (I know I'll get a lot of flack over that from the forum "Safety Experts". I was a member of my department's Safety Committee, when I worked for a very large city's water and power dept, so I'm not balse about safety practices)...

Before I got a tumbler I had been reloading about 12 years and whenever I wanted some "BBQ" ammo I polished some brass with a home made hard wood spindle chucked into a drill and used fine steel wool. Sometimes I'd drop some furniture wax on the steel wool to leave a protective coating...
 
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